Smart home functionality is a maturing space, but the opportunity for insurance companies remains largely untapped. Currently, there are few useful early warning and loss mitigation systems that actually save costs and time for both the property owner and insurance company alike. For instance, currently, homeowners insurance claim events are detected by the homeowner, who contacts the insurance company to inform them that there has been a loss. However, the loss could be mitigated with automated warning and detection systems that interface with the insurance company systems. For example, homeowners may not become aware of minor to medium hail damage to their roofs until such time as that damage leads to water damage to the interior or exterior of the home. If they could be made aware of such loss events earlier and then take corrective actions, then the increased damage could have been mitigated or avoided.
Another maturing space concerns vehicle telematics in which the latest developments in automotive electronics are dealing with the automatic monitoring of the state of a vehicle. Such monitoring is based on the integration of numerous sensors into the vehicle such that important functional parts and components may be monitored. It is becoming of increasing interest to collect a variety of information, regarding different aspects of a vehicle, which may have different applications depending on their usage. The use of telematics in automobiles has become more common in recent years, particularly as implemented with in-car navigation systems.
Finally, another maturing area relates to the use of credit information, such as a credit score or credit history, in making underwriting, pricing or other decisions about the terms and conditions on which to offer or provide insurance coverage. Such use involves modeling and making determinations as to whether there is a correlation between a person's credit information and the person's risk profile (which may affects the person's insurance rates).
In this regard, there is utility and functionality to be provided by utilizing smart home and vehicle telematics data with credit information, as factors in formulating the terms of an insurance policy to be issued or offered.